yeah I could be so good at loving you
by gallifreyancircles
Summary: "The kicks are his favourite. He never thought he'd get a second chance at it, a chance to be the man he'd always wanted to be with the woman he's always craved." A short drabble thing I wrote. AU in that Belle was never shot and never lost her memory.


The kicks are his favourite. He never thought he'd get a second chance at it, a chance to be the man he'd always wanted to be with the woman he's always craved. He yearns for the appointments, wakes up early those mornings to ensure that she is ready when it's time to go. He wakes her up slowly on those mornings, shaking her lightly and peppering her face with feather light kisses, whispering sweet nothings into her ear in that Scottish accent of his, until her Australian accent returns with disgruntled mutterings he finds magnificent. He can't stop smiling through the appointments, and as he holds her hand so very tightly she feels the love and admiration radiating off of him in waves of what she knows he perceives as self-indulgence. She knows he regrets not being with his son as he grew up, and how he was responsible for his lack of a mother. She knows he feels he has failed him in the worst way – he thinks he's taken away the child's right to a loving and stable family. It's his fault his mother is dead – as much as she wishes it weren't true, she knows what he's done. She knows everything he's ever done, every wound he's ever given people. She asks the questions she needs to know and he answers the questions she wants to know.

It's hard for him, sometimes, to accept her love for him. No one has ever fought for him before, nor has anyone ever loved him like she does. So unconditionally and completely. She is his chipped tea cup, and he is her beautiful beast. They fit each other like one and the same, and she laughs at the metaphor that comes to mind when thinking of the two of them. _Like puzzle pieces_, she thinks, _handcrafted for each other, made with a purpose, and a job. Sometimes they are placed in the wrong spot, but they always end up side by side, latched on to each other as they were wont to do in the beginning. _For, even as they are broken and torn apart, someone will eventually become bored and complete the puzzle, and they will find themselves attached anew.

Each day is a blessing to him, and each breath is a lifetime to her. He is so beautiful, on the inside and the outside, and she is so in love with him. The lengths he's gone to for her reach beyond the realm of time and space, and the feelings he brings out in her – the thoughts that race in her head. Some part of her knows she should have been afraid of him all that time ago, should be afraid of him now, but she can't bring herself to be. Perhaps it was her innate stubborn nature which caused her to believe she could tame the beast, and that being well-read meant she could do what others would never dare to.

For the longest time, it was always her and the books. There were very few people allowed entrance to the quick paced and absolutely unbelievable mind of Belle French, content to merely be an observer of life and its systems. She scarcely allowed herself to participate in life head-on, and chose to remain in her area of expertise – knowledge. Never before had she needed to use practical means, never before had she needed to fight for herself. Never before had she had something to fight for.

Not a day goes by where he doesn't wonder how he came to be so fortunate, though he is consistently amused at how clichéd the thought itself is. _The Dark One approaches,_ they would whisper around him. Always _The Dark One_, never caring to learn past that and all of its implications. He'd killed his wife in cold blood, and had deprived his son of a mother. Soon after, he'd left his son trapped alone in a different world, completely unaided and abandoned. When she had come into his life all that time ago, so forcefully and headstrong, so unwilling to just _let him be,_ he hadn't known what to do, how to act, or even how to look_._ Rumple had come to crave the attention, though only from her. Every smile she gives him, every time her eyes land on him, it breaks him. It breaks him because he knows he doesn't deserve it. He knows he's done unspeakable and unforgivable things, and yet she with him she remains, somehow loving him even more for it. For his humility, his remorse, and his willingness to change for her. For her. Everything he does is for her.

She never thought he'd do it. Losing his son, only seeing him as a fully grown and broken man, killing his wife – she can't imagine how much he must love her to do this for her. She's only ever loved him, and it's only ever been him to care for her so. She is constantly reminded of his love through his smiles, his caresses, his kisses, and through all that he does. She'd never wanted a child before him, but from the moment she'd seen the true him, she'd wanted nothing more than to grow and age with him, with children as testaments of their love, who could share the lessons their parents could teach them. Belle would teach them about literature and instruct them on how to love and fight for what they believe in, while Rumple could teach them the best way to fix a chipped cup.

He never thought he'd get a second chance at being a father, but in those moments, when his palm rests flat against her rapidly growing belly, and he feels the soft sensation of movements and kicks from within, he is, for once, struck speechless and silent, his only thought being that, if life was to give him but one choice for the rest of time, if he were to only have one thing until his end, it would be this. Love.


End file.
